Category: Prison Camps

Little known on status of US student held in North Korea

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There’s been little public word about what has happened to an American college student detained in North Korea, which announced last Jan. 22 it had detained Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, earlier that month for alleged anti-state crime.

Warmbier, 21, who had visited North Korea with a tour group, was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison at hard labor after a televised tearful public confession to trying to steal a propaganda banner.

Diplomats inquiring about Warmbier and a Korean-American also being held have been told they were being treated under “wartime law.” It’s not clear what that means, although it could imply tougher treatment. The United States doesn’t have diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Warmbier’s parents said after his public confession last February that they hadn’t been able to communicate with him, and his father, Fred, expressed hope his son’s “sincere apology” would persuade North Korea to allow him to come home. The statement was released through the University of Virginia.

Although there has been scant news on Warmbier since his sentencing, his situation could re-emerge as Donald Trump’s administration begins dealing with North Korea. He has said he will push China to exert its influence on North Korea to bring it into line, but Trump also said during his presidential campaign that he would be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un.

There’s little doubt North Korea would like to use Warmbier to get a U.S. president to travel to “kowtow and ask for him back,” said Boston University Professor Emeritus Walter Clemens, whose extensive writings on North Korea include two books. But there’s always the hope that such a meeting could open a way to improving current tensions, he said.

[AP]

Defected diplomat says international criticism of North Korean human rights undermines Kim Jong Un

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Thae Yong-ho, North Korea’s former deputy ambassador in London who defected to South Korea in July, says clashing with Pyongyang over its nuclear program has strengthened Kim Jong Un’s leadership, but continued human rights criticism and increased information from the outside world will over time lead to the downfall of the authoritarian and repressive regime.

Thae says the leadership in Pyongyang is unwilling to give up its nuclear program, and  its defiance in the face of U.S.-led pressure has helped solidify internal popular support and earned the leadership a degree of international respect. “Some countries are interested in following North Korea’s path to become nuclear powers themselves. Therefore, North Korean diplomats retain their dignity despite the criticisms of the international community,” Thae said.

He says, however, international criticism about human rights abuses in North Korea undermines Kim’s standing in the world and with his own people.

Thae says North Korean diplomats have faced denunciations from allies and adversaries alike over Pyongyang’s human rights record, but the leadership is more concerned about how this kind of criticism could damage the carefully nurtured public image of Kim as a near-infallible leader.

“It is not easy for North Koreans to understand the concepts of the ICC or human rights. But they will be greatly interested if they hear that Kim Jong Un will be tried at the international court. It will be a direct sign that Kim Jong Un is a criminal and his regime has no future,” he said.

[VoA]

Defector: “North Korea won’t change its repressive ways”

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In North Korea’s “utopian society”, the very words “human rights” do not need to exist — because it’s so perfect, the regime maintains!

The concept is not even taught. I had never even heard of the term “human rights” when I was in North Korea.

It also strongly denies the existence of the political prison camp system throughout the country.

It maintains this position even though I was born in the most infamous, political prison camp in North Korea: Camp 14.

Only recently did North Korea concede that “labor detention centers” exist, but solely for the incarcerated to have their lives improved.

North Korea also denies committing human rights violations, threatens and intimidates defector activists working to raise awareness of human rights issues, and attacking and criticizing those who have testified during the United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s investigation, calling these defectors “human scum.”

The dictatorship in North Korea has never been honest or truthful for more than six decades it has been in existence.

[Excerpt of CNN article by North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk]

Defectors lift curtain on North Korea’s information blackout

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The Kim regime has maintained its grip on North Korea by imprisoning its enemies and by controlling and censoring the mass media — newspapers, TV, radio, with only a privileged few getting access to the internet.

TV shows on state-run media tout the achievements of North Koreans and their leader. During the last few years, North Korean defectors based in in South Korea have been undermining the country’s information blackout.

One of those activists is Kang Chol-Hwan, a North Korean defector. Today, he’s the director of a non-profit called the North Korea Strategy Center based in Seoul, South Korea’s capital. Formed in 2007, his group pays Chinese smugglers to send USB drives filled with prohibited, outside media into North Korea. He says, even though North Koreans lack internet connections, they can watch smuggled movies and TV shows on their computers or on Chinese video players with USB ports, like these, called “Notels.”

KANG CHOL-HWAN: We send various content from stories on human rights, general information on South Korea, to images depicting the average American…. It helps them to realize that in the outside world, even the criminals have rights.

KARLA MURTHY: Your strategy of sending these USB sticks over there, how do you know that strategy is working?

KANG CHOL-HWAN: We regularly monitor the response through those who are able to move across the China-North Korea border more easily. If we find that a television drama that we sent has been banned, we know that it has been impactful.

KARLA MURTHY: Would have happened if you were caught listening to foreign broadcasts?

KANG CHOL-HWAN: You would have been branded as an anti-revolutionary. Then, you would be sent to an internment camp, but if you were repeatedly caught, you would be executed…

[Read transcript of full PBS interview]

Canadian officials meet pastor sentenced to life in prison in North Korea

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North Korea’s state media says Canadian officials have met with a detained Ontario pastor who has been sentenced to life in prison in the country. Hyeon Soo Lim, a pastor with the Light Korean Presbyterian Church of Mississauga, Ont., was sentenced last December by a North Korean court to life in prison with hard labor for what it called crimes against the state.

A Canadian government delegation led by Sarah Taylor, director general for North Asia and Oceania for Global Affairs Canada, arrived in North Korea for a three-day visit to discuss Lim’s case and other issues.

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said the Canadian officials met Lim, but provided no further details.

Lim’s relatives have said the pastor, who is in his 60s, traveled in January 2015 on a regular humanitarian mission to North Korea. They said Lim has made more than 100 trips to North Korea since 1997 and that his trips were about helping people and were not political.

[Canadian Press]

UN discusses North Korea’s human rights abuses despite objections from China and Russia

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The U.N. Security Council on Friday met to discuss North Korea’s “appalling” human rights situation, overriding a bid by China, Russia and three other countries (Angola, Egypt and Venezuela) to block the meeting.

It was the third time Beijing has failed to stop the annual discussion at the Security Council since a U.N. commission of inquiry in 2014 accused Pyongyang of committing atrocities unparalleled in the modern world. Pyongyang’s sole ally and trade partner, China has long argued that international efforts should firmly focus on talks to denuclearize North Korea.

The U.N. commission of inquiry found compelling evidence of torture, execution and starvation in North Korea, where between 80,000 and 120,000 people are being held in prison camps.

“There has been no improvement in the truly appalling human rights violations in the country,” said U.N. rights official Andrew Gilmour.

South Korean Ambassador Cho Tae-yul told the council that North Korea had squandered $200 million on two nuclear tests and 24 missile launches — funds that Cho said should have been spent on easing the dire humanitarian situation.

[The Japan Times]

Ex-prisoners of North Korea speak out in Baltimore

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Former prisoners took part in a mock trial before judges, arranged by human rights groups to raise awareness of inhumane conditions in North Korea’s prisons. At the event, hosted by John Hopkins University in Baltimore, former prisoners described the human rights abuses they were forced to endure.

One of the speakers was Kang Chol-hwan, a defector who escaped from North Korea in 1992, after spending ten years in the Yodok concentration camp, where he was incarcerated as a child with his family. The ex-prisoner-turned-activist spoke out about the terrible conditions inside the camp, where it is believed thousands of people are still being kept captive and worked to death.

Chol-hwan described how he and his family were forced to survive on vermin and were made to carry out slave labor. Recalling his time in a North Korean camp, Chol-hwan said: “Daily life in the work camps is very mundane. We wake up at 5 am and are forced to work until sunset. We are given lessons on Kim il-sung and Juche. We are forced to watch public executions.

He added: “We are physically abused – hit and tortured. I think of it as another form of Auschwitz. These work camps are like products of Nazism, an abusive government needs elements such as Nazi concentration camps. They just have different ways of killing people.”

Chol-hwan said escapees of the camp usually got out with the help of the South Korean government or missionaries. He said: “Missionaries came and prayed for us. The heavens helped me and I was [eventually able to get from] from China to South Korea.”

[Daily Express]

UN renews effort to locate abductees in North Korea

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The United Nations has renewed pressure on North Korea to reveal details about hundreds of people abducted decades ago. Argentine lawyer Tomás Ojea Quintana, the special rapporteur on North Korea, made the comment in Tokyo Saturday, after completing a 10-day mission to South Korea and Japan. He also met with defectors and families of individuals abducted by North Korean agents. A final report is due to be released in March.

Ojea Quintana told lawmakers in Japan that he was committed to advancing the return of Japanese taken by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Japan has officially listed 17 nationals as abductees, but it suspects Pyongyang’s involvement in many more.

The 2014 report issued by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry into the Human Rights of North Korea found that North Korea had “engaged in the systematic abduction, denial of repatriation, and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons from other countries.” While most abductees were taken from Japan and South Korea, others were taken from countries including Thailand, Romania, Lebanon, Malaysia, Singapore, France, Italy, the Netherlands and China.

Anocha Panjoy, a Thai woman, went missing in Macao in 1978 while working as a masseuse.

North Korean defector Kim Dong Nam said his son was abducted from China by North Korean agents almost a decade ago (2007). The boy had planned to travel to the United States, but agents learned of those plans through colleagues who’d been captured earlier. “They weren’t able to withstand the torture,” Kim said, noting the colleagues had been “sent back to North Korea and tortured and forced to work for hours – tremendous hours” in a camp.

[VoA]

North Korea continues to expand prison camps

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On Tuesday, Washington-based Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) released images of Camp No. 25, a camp near Chongjin, on North Korea’s northeast coast. According to HRNK, the camp underwent an expansion before 2010, when it almost doubled in scale, and has continued to operate at its larger size.

“Our satellite imagery analysis of Camp No. 25 and other such unlawful detention facilities appears to confirm the sustained, if not increased importance of the use of forced labor under Kim Jong-un,” HRNK executive director Greg Scarlatoiu said in a statement.

HRNK‘s report comes after separate analysis by Amnesty International this month concluded that Pyongyang “is continuing to maintain, and even invest, in these repressive facilities. … These camps constitute the cornerstone of the country’s large infrastructure dedicated to political repression and social control that enables widespread and systematic human rights abuses.”

The UN’s 2014 report estimated that “hundreds of thousands of political prisoners” have died in the North Korean gulags over the past 50 years amid “unspeakable atrocities.”

[CNN]

North Korea upgrading its prison camps “abuse on an industrial scale”

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North Korea has upgraded its network of brutal prison camps to add six new guard posts and a crematorium as part of its ongoing “industrial scale” of torture and abuse, Amnesty International has warned.  The human rights group has obtained satellite images of the secretive regime’s “kwanliso 15” and “kwanliso 25” camps, which show increased activity on both sites.

“…The imagery we’ve analyzed is consistent with our prior findings of forced labor and detention in North Korea’s kwanliso, and the physical infrastructure the government uses to commit atrocities are in working order,” Micah Farfour, an imagery analyst for Amnesty International, said.

Most of the notorious camps’ estimated 120,000 inmates are believed to be political prisoners, with many thrown in jail simply for criticizing the regime.

North Korean defectors who have escaped the camps say inmates are worked to death in the surrounding fields, while some are ordered to murder their own children to reduce the number of mouths that need feeding.

“The North Korean government is still denying the existence of these hellish camps, but year after year we’ve documented and photographed a vast network so massive that it’s visible from space,” said Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty‘s UK director of campaigns. “The tens of thousands of people held in the camps face unimaginable suffering –  excruciating forced labor, rampant malnutrition, violent punishments, rape and even execution. These images chronicle abuse on an industrial scale.”

[The Telegraph]